


Concert in Cardiff

by moth2fic



Category: Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-16
Updated: 2006-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth2fic/pseuds/moth2fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts and longings of the members of Torchwood, presented in musical notes. Not necessarily always in harmony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concert in Cardiff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MistressKat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressKat/gifts).



> This was written between seasons 1 and 2 as a gift fic for Kat.   
> I am well aware that Torchwood and all its members belong to the BBC and I just play with them.  
> I am also aware that Owen is not presented in the show as Welsh, but he has a Welsh name and I think of him as either wannabe Welsh or as having left Wales early in life thus losing his accent.

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**Concert in Cardiff.**

 

_(All proceeds from the sale of tickets will be distributed among the homeless)._

 

_Programme notes._

 

**Prelude and Fugue.**

 

She had been so excited by them all. Had felt herself to be the new girl, the breathless innocent. Her! An experienced copper! But in those early days they had shone. And even now they made her feel restless and alive in a way that her boyfriend never did. Like a comfortable old cardigan he was, see? You dreaded the day when you’d end up giving it to Oxfam, but you knew deep down that that day would come. All the sooner now she was surrounded by such scintillating company.

 

Except. It was all dreams really. A kind of itch that dissolved before you scratched.

 

That moment in Owen’s embrace in the dark. Just staying close for safety’s sake, of course, but she’d felt his appreciation. Digging into her thigh. And now he was hers for the asking. Only she didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want a man who made fun of her, didn’t show respect, threw things she hadn’t a hope of catching. Missed when she threw. He could keep his appreciation.

 

The office manager. Who would have thought he had it in him? Hiding his girlfriend all that time. Going about his daily tasks and mixing with them all without a sign of guilt. A deep one, that Ianto. Capable of serious affection. Obviously. But a bit unhinged? A cyberwoman, for God’s sake! One to steer clear of.

 

Computers were the new sexiness, but she’d never fancied it with a woman. Friendship, now, that was something she hoped for. But nothing more. Maybe when she and Tosh had known each other for a year or so there’d be a kiss on the cheek, or even on both cheeks, when they met, but for now, not even a handshake.

 

Which left him. Well she had to be honest with herself. Fancied him something rotten, didn’t she? Those eyes, that soft inviting mouth. That caressing voice. Good body, too, look you! But you couldn’t forget the age gap. Age gulf, more like. And she didn’t for one moment want what the wartime shagbunny had had. Even though she’d looked happy with her memories. That could never be enough. Not for a sensible copper like her.

 

So it was back to the boyfriend. Till something better turned up.

 

**Welsh Male Voice Choir.**

 

There were times when he wished he was good at bonding. Anyone would do. Just so that he didn’t have to sleep alone. It so didn’t count when you only got what you wanted by spraying yourself with alien mist. It was the only way he ever got any but it didn’t count at all. He’d love, for once, to make harmonies with someone who looked at him, not at whatever the mist showed them. Police-lady Gwen, for instance. She’d felt so good on top of him that time. And he’d actually been stupid enough to hope the feeling would endure in the calm light of day, or at least under the fluorescent lights of the complex. But no. Goody Two Shoes had no time for him. Never mind that being almost plastered to him had maybe saved her life. Wham, bang, thank you sir. And now it’s over and I’m off. Back to the boyfriend. They could have made beautiful music together. He’d known. For sure. But there was no permanent welcome in that hillside, though he’d no doubt she’d be all over him again if they were in danger.

 

The dumb waiter. Now there was a thought. Someone daft enough to fall for a mechanical doll would surely be able to appreciate a real Welshman. On the other hand, falling for the cybergirl didn’t exactly make him someone whose judgement you’d respect at the end of the day. Even if she had been his girlfriend before the change. The darkness deepened there, all right. So maybe not one to consider abiding after all.

 

The computer geek. Lovely to look at. Delightful to hold, probably. Cold as ice, though. Bytes for brains. Far too many of them, too. An ability to sense his weaknesses almost before he noticed them himself. A tendency to criticise. To nag? Now that would be something he could do without. Guarding and guiding were the roles he’d picked out for himself, thank you.

 

Which left him. With the drowning pools for eyes and the voice that would melt granite. And the strangeness about him. The discrepancies. Gwen had noticed them too. Ages and times and improbabilities. If it was what he thought, which it couldn’t be because that was impossible, then he was old enough to be his father, perhaps, or even his grandfather at a pinch. Lead us, heavenly father, lead us. And he would follow, but not down that road, although he’d caught a speculative look or two. Looks that hadn’t depended on that pesky spray. A good job he’d saved some. It would be The Red Lion tonight after all. Some kind of community singsong, then afterwards, if he was lucky, a dance to a different tune.

 

**Horn Solo.**

 

It wasn’t as if she wanted to spend her life alone. There was a yearning, a desire for someone, something, that would matter more than the laptop and the cat. But there was a huge gap between desire and fulfillment. She suspected the gap was as wide as the Atlantic and as deep as the coal mines up the valleys. She didn’t have time for socialising. Or for finding a partner on the internet and going through all the hassle of setting up a meeting then being disappointed in the end. Agony Aunts suggested joining interest groups or sports clubs. Not on her schedule. Or taking a second look at one’s colleagues. Sure. She could do that.

 

Ianto, now. A fine figure of a man. With a penchant for automata, and an altogether too developed sense of secrecy.

 

Owen. Addicted to pheromones, out of a can, sex with strangers. And sarcastic, with it. An affair with Owen would leave him crowing and her beneath him in the pecking order. Not to be considered.

 

Gwen. Pretty. But a potential rival rather than a mate. And not really her type. Although she’d had a girlfriend in college with lovely glossy hair like that. Policewomen were sporty and less than cerebral, weren’t they? The woman could shoot, which was a turn-on, but it would be slumming, all the same.

 

Which left him, of course, but she needed the work relationship. It defined her. Made life worthwhile. And besides, there was a lot about him that she didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand if the truth be told. So thanks, but no thanks, even though he’d looked her way a time or two.

 

She sighed. Packed up for the day. She could tell those agony aunts a thing or two. She’d go back to her safe clean addiction. Slash fanfic on the net. Better than any of her colleagues, any day.

 

**Requiem.**

 

Damn them. All of them. Especially him, with his sweet mouth and his caring words and his empty eyes. Damn the world for not caring whether she lived or died. Or how he felt about it. Damn the powers that made a relationship between a cyberwoman and her boyfriend improbability of the week. Damn them all to hell and back or at least into the Cardiff fault. His sweet mouth. Saving his life; saving his sanity; saving his soul?

 

It was his own fault really. If he hadn’t wanted to make things better than they already were. If he hadn’t called in the doctor, the specialist. They were rubbing along nicely up to then, weren’t they? She was quiet and lovely in the basement and he had plenty of time to look after her. They would never have found out if it hadn’t been for the power surges. If he hadn’t called the doctor. The doctor who’d died. She’d died too, And the little pizza girl, whoever she was. He hadn’t died. Oh, no! He’d been saved. By the sweet mouth and the caring words. And now he had to live with the mistake. Live with it.

 

Caring words. And a brief touch to show that their leader thought about all his team. Even the ones who made mistakes and allowed death to come into the complex.

But the eyes were empty. They’d always been empty, hadn’t they? No real personal touch there, boyo. Just the mouthing and posturing of leadership.Despite the sweet lips.

 

Maybe he was spoilt now, for a normal relationship. Maybe he needed the strangeness, the wrongness. Not a cyberwoman, mind you. That would mean he’d never have anyone again, because she was the last, wasn’t she? But something alien, something superhuman.If only the leader, he of the sweet mouth and the caring words and the empty eyes, would show the slightest sign of anything out of the ordinary. Damn him.

 

That computer techie. A snob, if ever there was one. Thought herself too good for the less educated among the staff, didn’t she now? Just glared at him whenever the electricity so much as flickered. As if every mistake on the earth or under it was his, now and henceforth, world without end. Pretty, if you looked hard enough. Pretty and intellectual and cold. A frozen hell would do. One without electricity. Damn her.

 

That Owen. Idiot. A wanna-be superman with the empathy of a piece of coal. What did he know about anything? About how it felt to keep your one true love safe and warm in the basement and hide her from the world. About how it felt when she died. Had to die. Died because of a stupid mistake. Died because you’d called the doctor when things were rubbing along nicely. That Owen would never even have a one true love, let alone keep her safe. But he still looked down his nose at the office boy who’d so nearly got them all killed. Who’d got his one true love killed. Damn him.

 

That newbie. That tarty little policewoman with her big brown eyes and her trembling lips and her desire to remake Torchwood in the police service’s image. What gave her the right to swan in and make remarks, suggestions, criticisms? Why didn’t she go back to the world of car crimes and drug dealing and missing cats where she belonged? How could she stand there so beautiful and so alive? How did she escape the machines? Damn her.

 

But mainly, him. With the eyes you could drown in, the careless words and the sweet sweet lips. Damn him.

 

**Interval.**

 

_[Patrons are asked to return to their seats as soon as the drum roll is heard]._

 

**Military Twostep. **

 

So here he was again.

 

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been through all this before. All the angst. All the heartache. All the wishing. For all the good it did. He lay quietly on his makeshift camp bed in the office and considered his options.

 

No worse, really, than India, and certainly no worse than the war. Despite the numbers of eager and willing partners, they kept getting themselves killed. Except Estelle, of course, but he’d had to disappear. Couldn’t wrong her by appearing as a toyboy. Couldn’t see the love turn to uncertainty and then to shame.

 

And there’d been that interlude with Rose and the Doctor, but he might have known it wouldn’t last. So here he was, dedicated to making the earth safe, ostensibly tasked with keeping the Doctor away.

 

The camp bed was lumpy and hard.

 

Tosh. No spark, there. A super efficient colleague. True minds and all that. Couldn’t do without her. But not in bed. Sooner snuggle up to an icicle, he decided, and then thought about how an icicle would melt... Still, not for him. He didn’t really want a meeting of minds. A meeting of flesh was more to his taste. And he thought about past lovers, their moans, their heat, their softness in his arms.

 

Owen. If only the man would find some confidence somewhere. Not in a spray can, either. Anyone who bedded Owen would have to spend more time bolstering a fragile ego than on sex, and that wasn’t what he wanted. Not at all. If he couldn’t have Estelle or the Doctor, and he was realist enough to know that he couldn’t, he’d take sex. Glorious, happy, messy, delightful sex. With someone who shared his delight and accepted it as their due.

 

Gwen. Beautiful. He’d thought... He’d hoped... But there was the insuperable boyfriend (though he could think of ways to make him less insuperable) and there was the age gap. Well, of course, the age gap hadn’t grown or shrunk, but now she knew. She was young enough to be his granddaughter or even great granddaughter, God damn it. And he was no paedophile. Not that anyone would know. Except him. And her. And she was an adult, capable of making her own choices. So it wouldn’t really be paedophilia except that it would feel that way. To him. To her. And somehow the hoping had died. But even while he’d still been thinking, not hoping, just thinking, she’d chosen the boyfriend. So be it.

 

Which left Ianto. And the darkness that swirled around Ianto’s mind. Could he live with the idea of replacing a cyberwoman? Heck, yes, if the sex was good enough. But Ianto would have to want it too, and he thought that at present he wasn’t the brightest star in Ianto’s universe. He daydreamed a little. Of warm lips and of a slight shudder when he gave an infinitesimal caress. Some day. Perhaps.

 

Meanwhile, there was Torchwood to run, life to live, and death to seduce. He needed his sleep.

 

 

**Variation in D on a theme by Torchwood. ** _(A short coda)._

 

They were all, in their various ways open, vulnerable. Wanting that one true pairing that hardly ever arises outside the pages of a romance. Hoping. Waiting. So when the air shivered and the blue police box materialised somewhere between Tosh’s computer and the staircase, none of them had the least idea of how to avoid the impact. Not that anyone was hurt. Not physically. But there was an impact, all the same, with crazy dreams and broken hearts following. As usual.

 

**Fin.**


End file.
